WoW!

Want to get inside your donor's brain? Try storytelling

Charlie Hulme introduces us to his four articles that we will be featuring on SOFII in the coming weeks.

Written by

Charlie Hulme

Added

March 17, 2012

From cavemen drawing on walls…

Of course storytelling is nothing new, only the logistics change, from cavemen drawing on walls to Kindles. TheNew York Times recently reported on research that we are pre-programmed to respond to stories – that the brain tells itself stories to make sense of daily events.

So why is storytelling so important to us in fundraising? Well, everyone knows that emotion drives charity giving, but what drives emotion?

Stories

… to Kindles it’s all just telling stories.

They have the power to enthral and inspire us. It’s why novels always outsell textbooks; it’s why an episode ofEastEnders (one of the UK’s most popular soap operas) dealing with, say, alcoholism, child sexual exploitation, or HIV massively overshadows the ratings of a documentary tackling the same issues.

Commercial organisations have always been great at using storytelling techniques to get their message over, but how well do we do it in nonprofits? Not great according to a recent PhD analysis, which concluded that the majority of fundraising messaging was overly formal, cold, detached and abstract.

But we’re getting better. We can all think of great stories being told in direct mail or online appeals, but what happens when we switch to the oldest (and most powerful) method of all: one human being talking to another?

So why are stories so important to fundraisers?

Let’s be honest, how much thought do we really put into the massive difference between what’s read or said? If our (honest) answer is ‘not much’ then we’re missing anenormous opportunity.

Research by the Neuroscience Institute of Princeton University in the USA shows that stories cause the brains of the speaker and listener to synchronise. No wonder the latest ‘Giving Trends’ (Third Sector Research, London, UK) says that the telephone is the most effective way to solicit donations.

The most powerful way to tell a story: one person talking to another.

So, over a short series of articles I’ll share methods we’ve learned, from over three million fundraising conversations a year, on how you can tell your stories most effectively to inspire new donors and increase engagement with existing ones. Together we’ll look at some of the key elements that so powerfully transform fundraising presentations into inspirational conversations:

About the author: Charlie Hulme

Charlie Hulme is managing director of DonorVoice. He helps charities uncover what, of all the things they do, improves the strength of relationships and what is harmful. Partners see a massive improvement in performance, value and retention.

Voted top speaker at the Institute of Fundraising’s National Convention in 2013, he writes frequently for SOFII, 101fundraising, the Institute of Fundraising and many others.

Seasoned fundraiser Ken Burnett says of his latest article, The Emotional Brain, ‘It seems to me that fundraisers don’t know as much as they might about what it is that makes people give and why; what makes them loyal or repeat donors and what binds them to our cause above other causes, come what may. So I’m fairly sure that the emotional brain is the most important subject I’ve written about in a long time. Working on it has quite altered my view of what, as fundraisers, we should be doing when we acquire and then communicate with our donors.’

Charlie Hulme asks you to use the quotes in his review of George Smith’s seminal work Asking Properly: the Art of Creative Writing as a mirror. If you despair at times, don’t worry; if you see where you’re going wrong Asking Properly will put it right.

‘The face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter’, said the Roman philosopher Cicero. It is so much more eloquent than ‘facial coding’. Yet this core of Dan Hill’s Emotionomics could be extremely important to your fundraising.